mistergoft wrote:Does it strike anyone else as ironic that the schools (well, Berkeley at least) are increasing tuition costs so that they can expand their LRAP offerings?

I was thinking that also, but what it sounds like to me is that the school is going to accept people that are willing to pay ticket price (those people who are at the median or below) and then grant the extra money to those that are above median. This way the school is getting more tuition without looking like a total moneysucker. So where in '09 you had people paying lets say $40k ticket, and those above were paying lets say $35k, the school bumps it to $50k, gives a $10k grant to those that did ok, so those are paying $40k, and since they used the money from the person who payed$50k, its like they had a steady stream of $40k tuition.

mistergoft wrote:Does it strike anyone else as ironic that the schools (well, Berkeley at least) are increasing tuition costs so that they can expand their LRAP offerings?

Not at all. Why should the government subsidize the tuition of students who will be making a lot of money after they graduate, and not producing a lot of public benefit? The low UC law school tuition of yore was a giveaway to people who patently didn't need it. It makes a lot more sense to raise tuition for everybody, thus generating cash to blunt the debt load of alumni working in the public or non-profit sectors, who presumably will be underpaid compared to the amount of social benefit they create. Gotta internalize that externality, yo.

mistergoft wrote:Does it strike anyone else as ironic that the schools (well, Berkeley at least) are increasing tuition costs so that they can expand their LRAP offerings?

Not at all. Why should the government subsidize the tuition of students who will be making a lot of money after they graduate, and not producing a lot of public benefit? The low UC law school tuition of yore was a giveaway to people who patently didn't need it. It makes a lot more sense to raise tuition for everybody, thus generating cash to give to public servant and non-profit alumni, who presumably will be underpaid compared to the amount of social benefit they create. Gotta internalize that externality, yo.

Davis is increasing tuition, but raising financial aid also. The thing is, just about any Tier 1 school will have plenty of applicants who will be willing to pay full price tuition. I view this as accepting a bit more less qualified (on numbers alone) to pay full tuition and then give a bunch more financial aid to people with average/better than average numbers. This will allow the school to operate with the new f*d budget and allow students with decent numbers to attend the school at about the same price as last year.

mistergoft wrote:Does it strike anyone else as ironic that the schools (well, Berkeley at least) are increasing tuition costs so that they can expand their LRAP offerings?

Not at all. Why should the government subsidize the tuition of students who will be making a lot of money after they graduate, and not producing a lot of public benefit? The low UC law school tuition of yore was a giveaway to people who patently didn't need it. It makes a lot more sense to raise tuition for everybody, thus generating cash to give to public servant and non-profit alumni, who presumably will be underpaid compared to the amount of social benefit they create. Gotta internalize that externality, yo.

Davis is increasing tuition, but raising financial aid also. The thing is, just about any Tier 1 school will have plenty of applicants who will be willing to pay full price tuition. I view this as accepting a bit more less qualified (on numbers alone) to pay full tuition and then give a bunch more financial aid to people with average/better than average numbers. This will allow the school to operate with the new f*d budget and allow students with decent numbers to attend the school at about the same price as last year.

We're talking about different things. I was responding to a post about a national school's (i.e., lots of out-of-state tuition payers anyway) expansion of LRAP, not about a good regional school's possible USNWR gaming.